Come on Eileen
by SurfingSpider
Summary: Captain Hurlock and the Arcadia encounter and old mentor captaining the battleship Eileen. Both Captain's, once friends, know their duties as adversaries. When a mechanical fleet arrives to destroy them both Harlock orders the Arcadia to defend the Eileen at all costs against the impossible odds.
1. Chapter 1

Come on Eileen

 _A Captain Harlock Story_

The Arcadia drifted through the endless Sea Of Stars. The stand-down crew was on the bridge idly passing the time. Throughout the ship the crew were in their quarters or the mess. Life aboard the Arcadia was each to their own until action was required. What to many regular navy looked like a lazy crew were the quite the opposite. The Captain only demanded one thing: duty when it mattered.

The Captain, the feared or loathed, Harlock sat at the end of his state room table. Meme was at the divan, playing through hands of solitaire. The Captain, silent in his thoughts sat with crossed arms staring at the empty seat at the other end of the table.

Beneath him, around him, Harlock could feel the presence of his friend, the departed Tochiro. Every memory of the diminutive pirate, genius engineer who now was the computer of the ship itself, brought a wry smile and silent chuckle before turning sad from the pirate Captain.

He would raise a glass of red wine in Tochiro's honour.

Harlock entered the bridge and stood beneath the vast space array screen.

"Nothing to report, Captain."

Harlock nodded.

"It's good to have nothing," another bridge Mate said. "Let's me catch up on sleep!"

The ease of the crew was infectious. Harlock was about to return to his state room when the ships sensor alarms began flashing.

Instantly Harlock turned around and sat down in his Captain's chair, a large, ancient, throne.

"Vessel coming out of transit space – large signal."

"Distance… 2AU."

Harlock waited for the information to be presented to him. There was no need to ask questions of his crew: they knew their role and what was important for the Captain to hear.

"Bringing the vessel up on visual…"

The space array flickered and settled, presenting the grey turreted hull of a warship.

Involuntarily Harlock rose an inch from his chair.

 _Eileen_ he whispered.

"It is the ESV-"

"She's detected us and powering weapon systems."

"General Quarters." Harlock said.

Lights changed from yellow to red throughout the Arcadia. Alarms sounded. Throughout the ship the crew were rushing to their battle stations. Behind Harlock Meme entered and stood by his shoulder.

"Open communications to the vessel."

"Yes, Captain!"

The image of the vessel was replaced with the image of its Captain, an old grey bearded man who eyes barely showed beneath the rim of his navy cap.

Harlock stood.

"Captain Harlock," the old Captain said gruffly. "You are hereby ordered to surrender your vessel to the authority of the Earth Provisional Government."

Harlock smiled. "This Captain and his crew does not recognise the authority of the Earth Provisional Government. We are free men and women under the flat of the skull and bones. Earth is the home of our heart, but we will never surrender our freedom to the puppets of the Mechanica."

The old Captain sighed and smiled. "I never expected any other reply than that lad."

"It's good to see you again, Captain. And the Eileen, that she still flies."

"Aye, the ship I trained a hot-headed upstart First Lieutenant on if I recall. But times have been hard on her. She isn't the Queen of the stars anymore, still a Grande Dame."

It was true, that hot-headed upstart First Lieutenant had been the former incarnation of Captain Harlock, an age ago when he was in the navy and fought under the command of the wizened Captain now facing him.

"Captain Raglan," Harlock saluted, "Time has been good to you as well. We have no quarrel you and I. I welcome you aboard the Arcadia for a Captain's dinner with full honours. As you have heard of our reputation as a warship, you will have also heard of the quality of our mess."

"Indeed I have Captain. It is an honour that I must refuse. In another time I would have gladly come aboard the Arcadia and listened to the music of your companion – and played you a few hands of rum."

"Another time. My invitation remains open to you Captain, always."

"Thank you Captain," Raglan's expression turned grave, and heavy, "As you know now is the time that we must do our duty to our flags.

"Captain Harlock, fugitive and pirate, surrender your ship and crew, or be prepared to be engaged."

"We will not surrender." Harlock replied. His ship was now at full combat readiness.

"Then I have no choice. Good luck, Captain." Raglan saluted.

Harlock returned the salute. "And to you Captain. I could not have wanted to face any other Earth vessel but yours."

Raglan nodded. Harlock would have noticed the sheen in the old man's eyes.

The communication ended.

"Move into extreme gunnery range and circular pattern.

"Aye, Captain."

Aboard the Eileen, Captain Raglan was issuing similar instructions to his crew. Both Captains knew each other well. Raglan had been Harlock's first ship Captain and taught him many of the naval arts aboard the Eileen before transferring to his own command during the war that had seen Earth defeated and occupied. Harlock had rebelled and continued the fight for a free Earth despite being painted as a pirate and enemy. He was still free, and commanded the Arcadia, a warship advanced and powerful. The Eileen may be a battleship but she was old. A Grande Dame indeed, not upgraded by the real powers who ruled Earth, fearing a powerful navy. The Eileen was larger, with more guns and ship missiles, she was also slower, and lacking the advanced computics of Tochiro's genius.

"Range reached, Captain."

Harlock nodded. The array showed the Eileen, turrets pointed towards him.

"Begin the spiral. All batteries on ready for my command."

"She's firing, Captain!"

A single brilliant scarlet lance that raced across the bow.

 _I will hate having to sink you Captain. There is no honour to destroy a grande ship like the Eileen. As you said, we must do our duty to our flags._

"Prepare a spread of torpedoes. The Eileen is an old ship and I know the tactics of her Captain well. Forward batteries, lock for climb and descent against the spread."

"Entering the first band."

Harlock closed his eye, the other lost when he chose is life as an outcast. It was time.

His eye flashed open.

"Huete!"

One, two, three, four, five, six torpedoes launched out of the prow of the Arcadia behind the Skull and Crossbones ram. The two fore-turret triples fired their yellow beams in sequence; one turret below, another aimed above the Eileen. All the weaponry was timed to arrive at the target together. If the Eileen moved up or down it would be struck by one of the triples, if it stayed level it would have to deal with the torpedo spread.

The attack was a standard tactic known across the navies. Still, it was effective. The Eileen launched its own similar attack of four torpedoes: two above, two below, and its four triples aimed directly along the Arcadia's path.

"10 seconds to impact, Captain."

"8 to target."

The Arcadia's weapons were faster, another advantage to make up the overall difference in firepower and armour.

"9 / 7"

"8 / 6"

"7 / 5"

Harlock remained silent. He could see that the Eileen was rising, preferring to take is chances against his triples than the more powerful torpedo warheads. It was what Harlock would have done as well.

"6 / 4"

The two barrages passed by each other.

"5 / 3"

"4 / 2"

"Port, 5 degrees," Harlock ordered evenly.

The ship turned, the pilot intently ready to react to any order.

"3 / 1" said simultaneously.

"2 / 0"

The Arcadia turned towards the torpedos and his anti-missile defences which began firing hundreds of man-sized laser bolts as soon as they came to bear.

On the array flashes and fire rippled along the Eileen as it was struck by a triple.

"1"

The Arcadia was ahead of two torpedoes which passed by her stern. The anti-missile screen destroyed the one ahead in a bright bloom of orange.

The fourth was struck and detonated just off the port broadside tossing the pirate ship sideways.

Harlock relaxed his grip on the chair. The first volley was always the tensest.

"Reload proximity torpedoes. Both triples at level impact zone."

Turret weapons fired faster than torpedoes. The ratio depended on crew and weapon size. The Eileen was a 1/3 vessel. One torpedo spread for every three turret volley.

"Eileen maintaining its spiral."

"Maintaining facing."

 _She intends to keep her distance and rely on her armour and attrition,_ Meme spoke.

Harlock nodded.

"We'll play the game for a few rounds."

The triples fired.

The death spiral continued. Dazzling lances flashed between the ships. Captains made decisions, gave orders. The range slowly closed. As the torpedo spread closed to pass the Arcardia's proximity warheads detonated, also destroying the Eileen's missiles.

Hits were made. Harlock remain stoic in his chair. The Eileen was still packing its punch. He smiled.

"Turn directly to face, hex pattern spread. Triples directly ahead."

The Arcadia turned sharply. The torpedoes launched out, 1/2 speed, when the Eileen would not be firing any in response. The triples flashed out.

All four of the Eileen's triples fired back down the line directly at the prow of the Arcadia. The passing beams rippled and distorted each other throwing all but one of the Eileen's triples off target.

"The old dog has learned some new tricks" Harlock admired. Raglan was a wasted man serving the Earth Provisional Authority. He should be plying the Sea of Stars just like Harlock, a free man.

The beams smashed against the prow; but that was the Arcadia's most heavily reinforced point. The Skull and Crossbones was blackened but not penetrated.

"Eileen turning away."

 _Keeping her distance._

"Direction?"

"Starboard south."

 _So she won't mask her forward turret with the retreat._

"Two three pair spread level and below, triples level."

The next triples exchange was in Eileen's favour, racking the bow alongside the torpedo bays. The Eileen was trying to remove one of the Arcadia's advantages.

The Arcadia had its turn with the next spread. The Eileen continued to dive beneath the Arcadia's horizon to get beneath its turrets whilst keeping all four of its own ready to bear. Three torpedoes were aimed at the Eileen. Two were blown out of the stars by its anti-missile screen. The third struck to the side of the second fore turret. A solid hit. The Arcadia rocked as more beams struck its bow.

"Roll."

Space has no limit on direction of facing. The Arcadia turned over on its centre keeping its heading until it was upside down and its masked turrets free to fire again.

The Arcadia concentrated its fire on the damaged turret using its spreads to box the Eileen into the path Harlock wanted it to take. The focus paid dividends. After two more volleys the second fore turret exploded and smoke began pouring out of the large wound.

The Arcadia was not without its damage. Beam pitmarks and near torpedo misses made half a dozen smaller smoke trails. Damage Control crews rushed to the worst areas to put out fires, vent air and close bulkheads.

The distance had closed considerably.

The Eileen could not, did not want to dive deeper or turn away and mask its weapons now that it had lost a turret. Harlock's direct approach had forced it into a close fight. The inverted Arcadia would soon pass over the Eileen at a right-angle.

"Match direction and dive."

The nose of the Arcadia, its Skull and Crossbones dipped, coming directly to face down on the Eileen. The ship listed bringing it inline as torpedoes and beams raced between them. Secondary weapon systems now in range added their rapid-fire weight.

"Prow hull integrity 75%. Damage to tube 4; it can still fire but at 1/5."

"Eileen rising. 25 degrees."

They closed faster.

 _Does he intend to let me ram? Never. Raglan would not sacrifice his crew that way._

The damage mounted.

"All torpedoes ahead, point-blank."

The crew on each bridge were close enough to make out the extent of the damage they had caused with their own eyes.

The next volley, or the last if they maintained course and collided, the prow ram of the Arcadia ready to snap the spine of the Eileen, was devastating. The Arcadia's torpedoes, down to five, were barely out of their launch bays before they struck. Two were destroyed in time, three blasted a two hundred metre gash in the Eileen's flank. The triples punched out through the other side.

The Eileen had been breached.

Harlock and the bridge crew watched as dozens of tiny figures were sucked out of the wound on jets of air and debris.

 _There is no worse way to die_ Meme said.

Sucked out in the cold vacuum of space.

The Arcadia did not escape lightly either. A torpedo blasted apart its starboard sponson. Beams blew through decks, incinerating everything and everyone in their path.

"Casualties to medical bay."

"Damage Control to decks 5, 6 and 9."

The Eileen had a crew compliment of nearly a thousand at full roster. At best the Arcadia only had a dozen score of pirates to man its stations. Each loss was a hard blow to the ship.

The proximity alarms wailed.

"Hard to starboard!" Harlock would not end the Eileen by ramming it. She deserved to go down fighting, or take the Arcadia in the true duel of Captains.

The ships raced past each other, secondary batteries blasting apart armour and debris.

"Bring her about." Harlock stood. The next volleys would decide the engagement and he would face them standing, just as Captain Raglan, his mentor, would.

"Captain! More ships entering the area!"

"On screen!"

A dozen ships of all sizes had exited transit-space. Six destroyers, two light and two heavy cruisers, a light carrier and a battle cruiser.

The array screen was taken over by an image of a humanoid shaped, tupee wearing, mechanical man.

"This is Count Mek. Both your vessels have been identified as pirates in league with the criminal Captain Harlock. Prepare to be destroyed!"


	2. Come On Eileen

"Captain, the Eileen is attempting to communicate with the mechanica commander."

 _He is after the glory of defeating you himself, Harlock, Meme minded._

"Bring us about the Eileen, cover the damaged side."

"Captain?"

"Count Mek has interrupted our duel with the Eileen – an earth vessel crewed by men like ourselves. They may fly a different flag, but they are not honourless machines. We fight to free earth from the tyranny of the mechanica. We will not let them destroy a symbol of earth's resistance.

We will protect the Eileen at all costs!"

The crew were silent, but they gritted their teeth and nodded in assent. The Captain's reasoning was sound. Outcasts as they were, Earth was still their home world and they would fight to defend and free it.

"Weapon discharge from the enemy battle cruiser!"

Harlock's eyes widened.

Four sick red beams raced out from the mechanica saucer directly towards the listing Eileen. The Eileen fired its two functional turrets in response, deflecting two of the ship killing beams. The remaining pair homed in to blast the Eileen apart.

"Eileen turning, accelerating..."

Harlock stepped forward, fists tense. "Come on, Eileen!" he said aloud through gritted teeth.

His sentiment was shared by his crew who were all at the edge of their seats. The Grande Dame of the Earth fleet, their own Captain's own learning ground...

One beam passed overhead, melting and scorching armour like wax with its passing. The last punched directly into the rear of the old battleship and out the other side. Secondary explosions rippled across the warships aft.

The crew held their breath.

"Catastrophic engine failure averted," Battle Analyzer, the Arcadia's sole machine intelligence announced, "Speed reduced to 10%."

 _Practically dead in the water._

"Helm, bring us into position!" Harlock ordered.

"Enemy weapons powering for a second volley."

"Intercept!"

The Arcadia's triples fired along the axis of the mechanica's last attack, meeting and bending the beams away enough that they were no danger to the Eileen.

Count Mek reappeared on the array, clapping slowly. "I congratulate you Captain Harlock. I would have expected you to try to run like a coward. But to stay and fight and try to protect a crippled ship; your day's are numbered!"

The array went blank.

"Enemy light ships forming a Spiral Attack Group."

The Arcadia came alongside the Eileen facing the reverse direction. At the extreme range of their guns the eight light saucers were entering their formation, a sprialling funnel that would a constant stream of new attacks from all angles. With both the Eileen and Arcardia locked in a tight formation and almost at a standstill they would be easy prey to the attacks that had defeated the Earth fleet in the war against the mechanica.

Yet commanding the Eileen and Arcadia were Captains that had survived that war. They had fought and defeated the Spiral Attack Group. Despite the limitations they knew themselves to be in, they knew how to fight back.

"Open a channel to the Eileen."

"Aye, Captain."

Raglan appeared on the array, worn. Behind him was fire and smoke. How much of it was Harlocks doing he could not say. Enough of it.

"Harlock, what are you doing?"

"Defending you."

"Its suicide. We're sitting ducks and outnumbered. Retreat and we will buy you the time to get away."

"We will stand and fight." Harlock replied.

"Your plan has a 95% chance of failure." Battle Analyzer calculated.

"Harlock, while there is still time!" Raglan pleaded.

"That is a 5% chance of victory! Odds good enough for any human. Captain-"

"Yes, Harlock?"

"Link your targeting computers to ours. With coordinated fire at all sectors we will defeat their spiral attack."

"At once, Captain. Who would have thought that one day, you would be giving me orders?"

Harlock smiled.

Now it was time to wear the attack that was coming.

Limited time restricts me to smaller chapters.


	3. Chapter 3

The Spiral Attack Group. Many Earth space faring ships had been caught and destroyed by that infernal mechanica formation. Spiralling all around them, firing inwards on all angles, never presenting a still target. When one had passed another would take its place on a new angle, the ship unable to train its weapons from one target to another fast enough rendering its return fire ineffectual.

Without imagination Count Mek did what Captain Harlock expected him to do: rely on the past statistics of victory of mechanica fleets against human in general. It was an impressive record weighed heavily to the machines.

Like any statistic however, there were outliers, anomalies too many Standard Deviations from the Mean that when averaged with the Many were not apparent. Different results could be insighted from the outliers if they were investigated separately: when and where did the battle take place, what were the forces involved, who was the Captain, his ship. If the Count had drilled into the statistics, showed some curiosity, imagination, and not cold machine arrogance he would have gathered that the man he faced, and the ship he Captained, belonged to most of those outliers.

He would have computed that Captain Harlock, when Captaining the Arcadia, had never been defeated by the Spiral Attack Group.

Harlock was counting on that the Count hadn't. While he was just an anomaly, too few data points to waste cycles to process, he would continue to win.

"Adjust the Eileen's remaining triples to follow our dispersion pattern. Load cluster missiles. Secondary batteries reserve targets for damaged targets."

"Aye, aye, Captain. SAG approaching. Capital ships at station."

He is that arrogant, Harlock.

Harlock crossed his arms. The orders were given. The men knew their roles when facing the SAG. Until the situation changed he would let the battle proceed.

The SAG divided into two helixes each lead by one of the light cruisers and followed by a train of destroyers. Immobilised as they were the Eileen and Arcadia were going to weather the full danger of the SAG as it travelled over and around them from aft to bow without any hope of manoeuvre.

The enemy came into range.

The battle began.

Missiles rushed out from the lead saucers. The human ship's defence arrays filled the space with a lattice of temporary stars exploding the missiles as they passed through. The gunners adjusted their degrees as the range closed.

The missiles kept on an even line even as the mechanica ships changed their position, slipping above and below their targets.

Main guns began to exchange fire, fiery spears racing to obliteration. Countermeasures responded.

Ordinarily the light guns of the mechanica ships would be a serious threat to either the Arcadia or the Eileen, but both were damaged and their fire concentrated on the sore wounds hoping to widen the breach for a killer missile to finish the heartless work.

The overhead array flashed red and orange.

The weight of fire intensified as the spiral moved over them.

The Arcadia's missiles sped out and exploded into hundreds of fragments across the path of the spiral. Mechanica destroyers tried to evade right into the path of single triple barrels, enough destructive power to cripple or destroy, spearing through and out the hull, bulging it outwards before the power source fireball exploded the ship to pieces.

The quick destruction of one of the light cruisers and two destroyers brought about confusion and panic. Safe flight routines were no longer so, the mechanica ships broke their spiral and reverted to individual control.

That is, without a battle plan.

The battle was still no yet closer to conclusion and the odds were great.

"Carrier is launching fighters."

"How many?"

"Five squadrons."

One hundred attack fighters if not more.

"Cruisers are warming up their main guns."

They were going to shoot in the fighter swarm and the remnant of the SAG was still, if confusedly, engaging them.

The situation had changed.

"Captain!" the sensors operator shouted. "Another Class A ship is entering the system!"

Harlock clenched his teeth. Was every mechanica eager to claim him as their prize?

"On screen."

His grimace evolved into a smile. There was only one ship in the galaxy that looked like that.

"We're being hailed."

She won't leave you alone in times of peril, old friend.

"Captain," a velvet-gloved woman's voice announced, "You started without me."

"Emeraldas."


	4. Chapter 4

The Queen Emeraldas was unmistakable, unlike any other space fearing vessel in the galaxy. Its sole occupant, a Captain like no other.

Harlock resolved his plan. It was daring, a bet all-or-nothing shot. A plan that the mechanica would never expect.

"Emeraldas, take the Arcadia's station."

The Queen Emeraldas fired a staggered broadside from its archaic weapon mounts. The beams bracketed a mechanica destroyer keeping it in place for a second volley that blew it to pieces.

"I understand," Emeraldas guessed Harlock's plan. "Good hunting."

Harlock saluted.

"Helm, direct course towards the enemy command ship."

There was a momentary pause of breath before clenched jaws input the command and the ship began to move.

"Anti-fighter warheards on missiles. Triples on deflection path."

As the Arcadia turned away and closed on the enemy the Queen Emeraldas slipped in to take its place hovering above so it could use both of its broadside batteries. The Eileen continued to inflict damage, its hull blackened and venting but still firm. All three ships linked their targeting computers and filled the skies with bursts of light.

The remnants of the SAG fell back into a typical linear formation and released clouds of decoys and reflectors. With a new full strength warship against them they didn't have the statistical chance to survive the bombardment. They were chased away with secondary weapons.

It was the oncoming bomber squadrons followed by the two heavy cruisers coming out of their torpor to engage in the battle that were the new threats. The cruisers were already launching long range missile spreads that would be programmed to pass behind the Arcadia and turn around to attack from behind at the same time as bombers and cannons were engaging.

The Eileen and Queen Emeraldas fired a cone of cannon around the Arcadia creating a deflective barrier that would also keep mechanica ships out of its path.

The mechanica fire intensified. Beams bent off the perfectly timed deflection barrier. A few burnt though and struck the Arcadia, rocking the sturdy vessel. Harlocks' fire did not waver, each cycle of his triples hammering the enemy battle ship who responding with heavy fire of its own.

Harlock left the bridge and went to where he would be able to see all the battle, and feel it personally: to his wheel on top of the bridge tower where his flag flew free. His steady hands took the pegs of the wooden wheel and held a steady course.

The missile spread exploded in the midst of the bombers, blasting apart the closest and shredding those near with shrapnel. The bomber formation broke apart in all directions and the Arcadia sped through. Half the bombers let the Arcadia by and reformed to begin attack runs against the Queen Emeraldas and the Eileen. The other half began individual attacks, turning in and launching their armour piercing warheads.

The Arcadia's defence arrays spat out hails of proximity shells that covered the hull of the pirate ship in a halo of fireworks. Bombers and missiles flew it the storm, exploding and breaking apart. Two missiles raced through a gap and blasted the under-triple into ruin. Smoke poured from the wound.

Keep on flying!

It seemed as if the Arcadia would be engulfed by the weight of the attacks.

No less were the Queen Emeraldas and Eileen faring.

The bombers split into attack groups and sped over the Queen Emeraldas to attack the Eileen directly. Missiles raced into the hull and blasted open huge holes. The return fire sent many bombers tumbling but lessened as the damage increased.

Emeraldas would brook none of it. The point defence lasers mounted all along the dirigible sent many more mechanica to oblivion. Seated alone in her silent ship lights flashed orange and red over her composure. An out of control bomber span into her ships' hull. She smiled.

The Arcadia flew on down the middle of a tunnel of destruction as the heavy cruisers cycled their broadsides and missiles as fast as they could. The last of the Arcadia's own missiles met the incoming before falling silent.

A yard diameter cannon beam flew in front of Harlock, fading luckily before he would have passed through it and been incinerated.

His remaining triples, reduced to five barrels, glowed hot with the incessant firing.

A crashed enemy bomber smouldered on the deck.

"Increase speed! Straight at the flag."

He was going to ram it, Count Mek's battleship. And board it.

There was no tougher point on the Arcadia than its skull prow.

The enemy battleship belatedly began moving.

Harlock smiled. Count Mek wasn't going to escape him.


	5. Chapter 5

"Impact in ten seconds!"

"Sound collision sirens. Boarding party to prow. Boarding party to prow."

Harlock quickly stepped off the deck and into a thin catapult tube that when taking the grip would shoot him to the front of the ship where his men were massing and the confrontation with Count Mek waited.

He took the grip.

And was gone.

In the bridge the helmsman corrected the Arcadia's course keeping it true to the fleeing mechanica battleship.

The last of the Arcadia's missiles launched. Scarlet beams shot back at the Arcadia tearing fresh wounds but not stopping its deadly momentum.

Aboard their ships Emeraldas and Captain Raglan stood watching their arrays as the Arcadia put on a last burst of speed. The battle around them raged, mechanica saucers and bombers wheeling in for new strikes, met by as stiff a resistance as could be mounted. Far in the distance, the mechanica carrier drifted apart in two pieces, its keel broken by a long running missile from the Eileen, no home for the mechanica bombers to return to.

"You can do it, Captain!" Raglan urged. Show them what earthmen could do.

"Tochiro, give him strength." Emeralda's thought.

With those wishes the Arcadia's engines flamed brighter than before.

The mehanica battlecruiser tried to turn onto the same bearing as the Arcadia and outrun it a stern chase. It might have succeeded to if the very last of the Arcadia's missiles had not managed to penetrate the saucer's hail of screen fire and explode over its gravity belt.

Power momentarily shut down before backup batteries returned functions to normal. By then the Arcadia could not be denied its impact. The re-enforced skull and crossbones loomed closer through the viewing ports before filling them completely with its triumphant leer.

The impact shook every man and machine to their knees.

Armour strengthened to withstand kinetic missiles and energy beams had no answer to the inertia of a warship vectored directly into its heart. Bulkheads buckled. Holds, weapon mounts, crushed.

It wasn't until the Arcadia had deepened itself to the first triple did she stop.

"Board!" Harlock shouted.

His men picked themselves up from the deck and through the iris opened hatches behind the eyes of the skull boarding crew led by their Captain lept into the twisted maze of metal and fire that had moments before been an orderly flag warship.

A human crew receiving such a ram, if there had been a human warship as big as the mechanica battlecruiser, would have been left senseless and unable to respond. Mechanica men, cold and heartless machines that they were, reacted instantly. Marine squads raced to the breach from all points and began firing on the Arcadia invaders from all sides.

Through the increasing resistance Harlock lead the way, shooting down mechanica after mechanica with his Cosmo Dragoon with as much heartlessness as the machines themselves. His goal was simple. To reach the command deck and to defeat Count Mek. Without their leader the mechanica would retreat.

Twisted metal turned into clean corridors. A door opened and a squad of mechanica poured out, firing. Grenades and lasers swept both sides and Harlock pressed onwards over their short circuiting bodies.

At last Harlock reached his destination.

Only two of his crew had made the perilous journey with him, the others still held back in combat or casualties. A dozen mechanica charged them blindly from across the command centre. One of Harlock's men went down before all that was left was the sizzle of burnt circuit and metal.

"Has he gone?" the last sailor asked.

"Keep your wits about-" Harlock began.

A laser blast raced to the back of the sailor. Without delay Harlock leapt in the way and took the shot in his shoulder. He hit the ground and rolled up on one knee.

"Curse you Harlock!" Count Mek came out from his hiding place. "This is the end of you."

"I will fight as long as a single machine man lives!"

Harlock launched himself up and drew his Gravity Sabre. The cold steel arced down and encountered the Count's own laser blade.

The two drew apart and circled each other.

The robot was faster, stronger; programmed with all the moves of the fencing masters. When Harlock made an attack, a parry, a riposte, each of his movements, Count Mek's analytical brain sorted through the catalog of actions it could take and chose the one with the greatest chance of success. Count Mek had lain low dozens of other lesser mechanica men seeking his position and nearly as many earthlings during the war. What could stop him from doing the same to Harlock? A human without the processing power of his machine brain that held infinite knowledge?

The time that it took not to think.

The natural reflex of muscle itself, trained to perfection. A mind that let the body fight the battle for it.

Where Count Mek had correctly anticipated, blocked and attacked, to met the expected block, but not the unexpected instantaneous motion that wrist, hand, and arm carried out thrusting the sabre into his chest, the slight twitch of muscle that depressed the Gravity Sabre's trigger just as the Count's machine brain had processed and sent a signal back to its arm's servo motors to initiate the counter move.

The energy shot rang out, flinging Count Mek's smoking body to ruin on the metal deck.

"Captain!"

"Captain, the enemy is withdrawing."

The predictability of machines.

There was no other way to look at it. Both the Eileen and the Arcadia were smoking wrecks of warships, barely space worthy.

"I wish we had the time to thank you and your crew, and you Emeraldas, properly in person." Captain Raglan saluted. "More ships, Earth and mechanica are on the way."

"And I wish we had finished our duel without interruption. When the Eileen is repaired name the time and place and the Arcadia and I will be there." Harlock responded.

"I don't think you'll find a soul that would fight against you aboard ever again." Raglan smiled. "I'll take your offer of dinner instead, Captain. I hope command has the will to repair this Grande Dame and not scrap her."

"That would be a travesty."

"Now get out of here while you still can. There'll be hell to pay and they may split up the crew but all that will do will spread your reputation further and faster through the Earth fleet. Good luck to you Captain, God Speed and Calm Seas."

"And to you, Captain. With men like you, Earth will have a chance."

The two Captains saluted each other.

"Its embarrassing that the Queen Emeraldas is going to have to tow us out of the sector," the helmsman said.

Harlock allowed himself a single laugh.

"We'll work hard to make her stronger than before. Those brave men there that we fought, Earthmen just like us, will demand no less.

Despite their government calling us traitors and pirates, we are the free men living our lives under the free flag. While we sail the Sea of Stars earthmen from the colonies and Earth herself will have the courage to fight to free themselves and join us.

And when there is enough we can free everyone."

His ultimate goal.


End file.
